Retrieval
by sealgaire
Summary: Subject one-two-one, Tam. R. Is in the crosshairs of the Academy
1. Prologue

_This is the prologue to a new storyline, set in the same world as bootlegging but it's going to be less humorous and a little darker. The reason I'm starting it before bootlegging is complete is because the idea came out of nowhere and I just had to write it before college assignments overwhelm me._

_I own none of the characters or the universe portrayed hereafter, (except the ones which I made up, in which case, I do.)_

…..

Veronica Emminsky put down the file she had been reading and stared at the three people in lab coats standing before her desk. They were all looking studiously at anything but her and had been doing so quietly and without movement for the last fifteen minutes while she had been absorbing what they had reported to her. None daring to indicate in the slightest that they might be uncomfortable or that they needed to return to work.

Emminsky leaned forward, put one hand over the other and rested her elbows on the desk, still examining the project leaders at the Academy.

Finally, she spoke. "He committed _suicide?"_

The two men and the woman before all looked up but didn't meet her eye. They were unsure of how how to answer, or if it would be wise to be the one who answered. That might draw her attention to them in particular.

One of them, a doctor Liu if Emminsky's memory served (which it always did), screwed up all his courage and opened his mouth, "He appeared to be improving, increased lucidity, a cessation in his violent outbursts, he reacted to aural stimuli and eye contact…"

Emminsky spoke over him, "Is this an _excuse?"_

"No ma'am!" Liu managed to splutter out.

His colleague, Bennett, stepped in. "All signs showed subject one-five-seven had reached an acceptable state to be readmitted to the live-fire exercises." She faltered as Emminsky turned her homing-missile stare upon her. "We couldn't have known he had completely broken down and was unable to cope with the, erm, procedures. That he had decided to end his life, or that he had gotten around the programming preventing it."

Emminsky glanced at the open file, there were two photos contained within. One showed a boy of twelve in a hospital gown, the other showed a figure in black combat uniform sprawled on the ground with the left half of his head blown out and a large-calibre bullet hole to the right temple. The offending firearm was half clutched in his right hand. Sand-coloured hair was all that linked the two pictures.

She leaned back and calmed herself. _They couldn't have foreseen this, could they? _"Do we know how why he did it and how he managed to get around his programming?"

Bennett, surprised that she was still employed or indeed, still drawing breath after sticking up for Liu, answered. "He was the oldest, it's possible his mental development overcame the programming and he realised what was happening to him, with the operation on his amygdala he wouldn't have been able to control his emotions and couldn't live with himself after…" She trailed off. Convinced though she was of the need for what they was doing, it still gave her nightmares.

Emminsky blinked at her and raised an eyebrow, indicating for her to continue.

"Well… His original breakdown happened after the first… test of his programming, whether or not he would… follow orders… without question. He took longer than most to, er, complete the task. After that point the psychosis and hysteria set in." Bennett replied. _Took longer than most to kill an innocent man that he'd never met before._

Clucking her tongue, Emminsky picked up a data tablet and pulled up a spread of numbers. She glared as she read, "In the last twelve months we have had… three suicides, seven instances where the subject had to be euthanized and twelve deaths during surgery. This leaves us with five subjects. We can of course acquire more but questions will be asked about our competency if our results," She held up the photo of one-five-seven's body. "Look like _this." _

She stared at the project leaders. "Well? I seem to remember progress being made with one-two-one?"

The last scientist, doctor Clemmons, spoke for the first time. "One-two-one was a special case; when she came to us she was a child prodigy, her mental resilience allowed her to deal with the impact of her actions much better than the others, which is why she made it to the age that she did without breaking down like one-five-seven. We made such progress with her that the others fell by the wayside." He sounded regretful.

"When she, well, _absconded_, her brother or someone working with him managed to gain access to a computer port inside the facility and wiped the records pertaining to the work we did on her so we've been unable to identify what made her different to the others. So far we've been unable to replicate the results."

Removing her glasses, Emminsky looked up at the ceiling. After a long moment, she said, more to herself and the ceiling than any of the other people in the room; "I suppose we'll just have to get her back then. No matter what the piss-drinkers in government say."

She motioned for the project leaders to leave the room. Then she made a call.

She did not want to end up like her predecessor.

…

In a rather unpleasant bar in a quite unpleasant town on the less-than-pleasant mining colony of Calaphraxis a communicator beeped in a man's pocket. He withdrew it slowly; a bulletin had been posted to all Systems Alliance military personnel of clearance level C3 and up. It was a notice to be on the look out for one River Tam, who had apparently killed several researchers and stolen highly classified military technology from the Blue Sun corporation R&D department's lab on Freya. She was believed to be accompanied by her brother Simon and had last been identified by CCTV in a bar fight on New Melbourne.

The man smiled, so they had finally stopped trying to repair the Tam's lofty position on the general fugitive's list that any fool with a cortex could access. (If someone were to look for the Tams on that list, they would encounter the details and photographs of a middle-aged couple that had died in a terraforming incident on a planet called Miranda).

For some reason no one in the Alliance Justice department's IT group could figure out how to repair the changes, so it had been removed.

They were going after them in a more subtle way now.

The man holding the communicator felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned to see an extremely large, extremely ugly man standing over his seat. He was looking at his communicator with mock interest. It was probably the only one like on the moon; it had cortex access and could use the system relay boosters to connect with any other communicators in the Allied systems, rather than just ones on the same rock.

"That's a mighty fine gadget ya got thar, mind if'n I take a look at it?" The improbably large man growled, looking at the seated man with a wolfish smile.

"As a matter of fact, I do mind." Said the seated man as he looked politely at his new acquaintance.

The thug made a grab for the small piece of technology, simultaneously smashing the hand that had been on the other man's shoulder into his face.

The problem was, the other man's face was no longer there, and two feet of steel had somehow found its way into his neck.

The entire bar watched as the man with the communicator wiped his blade on the dead thug's ragged wife beater. He then slid it back into its scabbard, tossed a few coins to the barman and left.

…..


	2. Chapter 1

_I own none of the characters. I just work here._

….

Finger lightly touching the trigger of his favourite rifle, Jeb Wilks disinterestedly examined the two people he was about to kill through his scope.

It was nothing personal; he was the go-to guy on Thracia if you happened to want someone removed from your way permanently. His current employer (he didn't know their name, and they didn't know his) wanted him to watch over an exchange of some sort and kill whoever approached from the southerly end of the street, once they had handed over whatever it was they were handing over.

The man in his scope appeared to be in his 40's, although he could have been anything up to sixty what with the current state of medical tech, from Wilks' position he could see that his hair was light brown and his only weaponry appeared to be an older model pistol on his leg.

His friend appeared to be much the same age, but with much darker skin and black hair. It would almost be a shame to kill a woman like that, Jeb thought.

_Any woman who carries a sawn-off lever action has impeccable taste… But anyway._

I appeared as though they were still haggling with their contact, so Wilks drew his head back from the scope slightly to get a little more comfortable.

There was a shadow over his hand that shouldn't have been.

Wrenching a knife from his combat vest, he twisted to face whoever was standing over him, if he could throw it, maybe it would buy him the seconds to pull the pistol from his hip.

A small hand grasped his wrist as it began to arc forward in the throw. His arm continued in its motion but for some reason he couldn't open his fingers to throw and the weapon was being twisted toward his own heart

The last thought he had was that the eyes were wrong. He had seen boys girls that age who had fought in wars, killed for the criminal classes on many worlds and had terrible things done to them.

But none of them had eyes like the young woman who was sticking 10 inches of metal into his chest.

….

Malcolm Reynolds saw a small flurry of movement out of the corner of his eye. Meeting Zoe's gaze, he nodded imperceptibly, then sighed and drew his pistol on the man standing before him, Zoe followed suit

The man curled his lip. "That ain't such a smart idea, friend. Ripping off the people I work for is a game you don't wanna play…"

"Stow it." Mal interrupted. "You know what they say about turnabout being fair play?"

The man's face fell and he glanced over his shoulder at the roof of the warehouse where, instead of his shooter, there was a small figure dangling her legs over the edge, obscured mostly by shadows, but definitely not pointing a rifle at the two people with guns on him.

He turned back to deal with his very pissed smugglers.

"Listen, that wasn't my idea, my boss… He can be a prick, I'm jus' the guy that goes to pick stuff up y'know?"

Mal decocked his gun and put it back in its holster. Zoe kept her gun trained on their contact as the captain folded his arms.

"Do ya even have our credits?" He asked. They were supposed to be getting close to 25 thousand for transporting some mining equipment that had mysteriously disappeared and he was gonna be damned if he didn't get some sort of financial compensation for spending nearly three months in transit to this rock. Serenity was running low on pretty much everything from that trip alone.

Their buyer grimaced. "If I could just make a call?" He slowly pulled back his jacket to show the comms unit on his belt.

Zoe motioned in agreement and he gingerly unclipped it. "If I were you guys, I'd back off now. We know guys in the port, it'll be pretty easy for my bosses to ID your ship…"

Mal looked at Zoe and raised an eyebrow comically high. "I'm shakin' in my boots here, friend. But I think you better make that call."

The man pressed a few buttons, and then raised the communicator to his ear. "I need ya to bring me that case… yeah yeah I know what I said. The situation's changed… Just do it wudja?! Ok, alright." He lowered the device. "You'll have your money in a few minutes. But I really have to warn you…"

"Yeah yeah, we know; your bosses will find us and do all manner of unpleasant things. We get the idea." Mal said, taking out his own communicator. He pipped the device three times; the signal to Jayne that he was to bring the goods in on the mule.

Mal kicked at the dusty ground while Zoe stood stock still with her gun on their contact as they waited. After a few minutes Serenity's hovermule glided into the street, pulling a trailer weighed down with large crates.

As Jayne began unloading the trailer and making menacing faces at the double-crossing criminal a teenage boy jogged up from the other end of the alley and handed the man a small backpack, which he opened and withdrew a metal case.

He made to hand it to Mal, but Zoe raised her weapon. "Open the case."

The man undid the case's clasps and showed her the platinum credit bills, neatly stacked and wrapped in paper ties inside. "It's all there, see?"

Zoe remained unimpressed. "Take out all the bricks, undo them and spread them out, I wanna make sure some of that ain't gonna go bang soon as we're away from here."

As the buyer carefully began obeying Zoe's instructions, River appeared next to the mule, none of them had even seen her entering the street. She was carrying a long case under her arm, which she set on the mule's back seat and silently began helping Jayne unload crates.

After proving there were no nasty surprises concealed amongst the payment, then buyer stood up and backed away from the money. Mal fetched a bag from the mule and shoved the cash inside.

"Right," said the captain. "Y'all can explain to your bosses, for all the good I reckon it'll do, that I'm a man of my word: They wanted this stuff, I got 'em the stuff. I got paid. End of gorram story, they wanna pick a fight over that, let 'em know its their own damn fault."

He tossed the bag into the mule, and then hopped into the driver's seat. River and Jayne clambered into the back; Jayne drew his pistol and aimed it at their contact. "Gotcha covered Zoe."

Zoe backed away toward the mule, gracefully swinging herself in beside the captain.

"Take care now!" Called Jayne as they hummed away from the deal, twisted in his seat to keep his gun on the pair of crooks.

….

Some hours later, Marco Levantine was trying to explain to his boss how he had managed to lose 25,000 credits.

"I sent Ultan up to the roof afterwards and it turns out they got to your shooter, I couldn't have done anything! They'd 'a shot me!"

The man whose desk he was standing in front of took a drag on his cigarette. "If something like this happens again, I'm gonna have Lucas take you for a spin and kick you out the airlock at about 10 thousand feet… Understood? The only reason you ain't taking that trip right now is because I'm impressed you got the parts. God only know how you managed that one."

Marco's knees nearly buckled in relief. "I... Thank you very much sir..."

"Get out before I change my mind, you idiot."

Before He could reach the door, it opened and two men strode into the office. One of them grabbed Marco's collar and pushed him one-handed back in front of the desk.

The man behind the desk jumped to his feet. A submachine gun pointed at the intruders.

"You have about three seconds before I paint my back wall with your blood to explain what the absolute fuck you're doing in here!"

There was something weird about the pair, they moved mechanically, were expressionless and wearing identical dark suits.

Without letting go of Marco's collar, the slightly taller one spoke evenly. "You are Mr Smolov?"

"Who the hell wants to know?"

"We were led to believe by a man in the port registry office whose official salary you… supplement, that you purchased some equipment from some people earlier today."

"My business is not…"

The other man overrode him. "Do you recognise any of these people?" He held out several wanted posters.

Smolov narrowed his eyes. If these men were after the bastards who'd gotten away from Marco, where was the harm in letting them know what had gone down?

He lowered his weapon slightly. "It was Marco there that met 'em, we don't know any names or nothin'."

The wanted posters were shoved under Marco's nose.

"Yeah! I saw that one and the dark woman with the hair. Maybe the one with the moustache but I ain't certain…"

The posters were withdrawn and folded neatly into an inner pocket. The hand on Marco's shirt was also withdrawn and he noticed that it was covered in a light blue glove.

"Thank you for your time gentlemen." Said the shorter one, as he spoke, he withdrew a small object from his jacket and clicked it, two tiny rods shot out of either end.

"We ain't done here!" Smolov waved his gun. "Who the hell d'ya think you are? Comin' inta my office askin…"

He stopped talking as a sudden pain filled his head; it was like there was something inside his skull expanding at an alarming rate. His vision blurred and he felt something warm drip down his lip.

Smolov dropped the gun and put his hands on the desk to steady himself. "Go tsao de…" He looked at Marco, who was on one knee, blood pouring from his nose and eyes.

He tried to talk but there was something liquid in his mouth.

The two crooks dropped to the floor almost in unison. Blood spread slowly across the linoleum floor.

The man stowed the little device in his pocket while his partner took out a datapad.

"The port lists at least fourteen firefly class vessels in the dock or immediate airspace. Three more will exit air traffic control's scan sphere within four minutes."

"Are there any Navy craft in the area we can contact?"

"The closest vessel is the Magellan, however they are outside the system and out of radioing distance. It'll take at least a week for any message to reach them."

The pair walked out of the room. They had been so close this time.

….

River padded down the ladder to her room, she unslung the rifle case from her shoulder and threw it onto the bed. She had felt slightly bad taking it from Wilks, but on the other hand, he was a sociopathic gun-for-hire.

As she kicked off her boots the room wobbled.

_Two men falling to the ground, haemorrhaging from the mucosal membranes…_

When reality reasserted itself she was lying on the floor.

They were on to her again.

….

_This was chapter 1 of Retrieval, the prologue to which I wrote many moons ago. Sorry about the delay. College happened._


	3. Chapter 2

_I don't own any of the characters, I just work here._

…

Simon was worried, and when Simon was worried Kaylee was worried. When Kaylee was worried, the Captain was worried, and when the captain was worried everyone else went ahead and got worried too.

River had not been seen for several cycles, her cabin was locked and Mal suspected she was sneaking around at night to scavenge food from the galley. Simon had last seen her in the corridor after they'd taken off from Thracia; she had shouted something about linoleum and blue hands before barricading her door.

That was why Kaylee was waiting in the galley in the middle of the sleep cycle for the second 'night' in a row; struggling to stay awake and catch their pilot. If nothing else they needed her back for flying duties, Mal, Zoe and Kaylee herself could deal with the run-of-the-mill stuff but landing would be a lot easier with River at the controls.

Zoe and Simon had both pointed out to her that there was no way she could catch River, what with her uncanny brain and all, but Kaylee maintained some hope that she might come out if it was just the two of them…

….

_There were __**flashing lights **__and__** smells **__and it was all a fake and the __**labcoatpeoplebehindglass **__were watching. They had their hands on her shoulders and on her wrists and __**inside her head. **_

River crouched on top of the dresser in her room, narrowed eyes glowering at her bed.

_**Performance.**__ That was what they wanted. They had constructed their weapon and now, like a __**rifle, **__they wanted to assess how well it performed its __**prime directive. **__When they pulled its trigger would it fire in the __**desired**__ direction? Would it misfire and turn on its masters?_

She slid from her position on the dresser like fluid, soundless, stalking her pillow.

"_Will you perform this task?" _

_**No Threat. **__Thisiswrongthisiswrongthisis wrong_

"_Subject is unresponsive..." _

"_Well I can _see _that, idiot."_

_The instruction makes __**no sense,**__ target is __**unarmed, restrained, No Threat.**_

"_You can do it, c'mon, take the gun… don't feel bad, he's done bad things, he's our enemy…"_

There was a spider under her bed. She crawled after it. It ran up her hand and tickled, she put it in her pocket for later.

_Maybe if she complied, they'd stop the __**needles… **__Maybe she could go__** home?**_

….

Kaylee was straddling the divide of consciousness and unconsciousness; she was awake, but not entirely aware that she was awake.

The spider skittering across her face rectified that situation.

She spasmed forward and swiped her hand across her face in an involuntary movement evolved for one purpose: _getthisthingoff!_

So swift was her instinctive reaction that she was unaware of why it had happened. Rubbing her eyes with tired palms, she put it out of her mind and looked at the clock on the wall. It was 2am by ship time and her alarm would have her up at 8, it was time to call it a night.

As she made to stand up she noticed that River was sitting in the chair beside her, eating an unidentifiable piece of dried something from the cupboards and watching her with large, unblinking eyes.

Kaylee was too tired to question how River had managed to sneak up on her, so instead she tried to act as nonchalant as possible.

"Evenin' meimei, long time no see…"

River tilted her head to the side, like a cat contemplating something it was trying to understand. "It's morning." She motioned to the clock.

Kaylee sighed, "I know honey, I'm just making conversation."

River just continued staring at her. Kaylee wondered if River actually understood that this unnerved folk and did it anyway for shits and giggles.

"Y'know that we all care 'bout you right?" Kaylee began, she'd had a speech planned but had forgotten most of it. It probably sucked anyway. "You've gone an' got everyone in a state."

River pursed her lips and cast her eyes downward. "Got scared for me, he gets the needles out when he's scared."

Kaylee supposed she meant Simon, who had indeed been trying to coax his sister out of her cabin, syringe in hand, since she'd had her episode.

"Meimei, he's just worried about you… an' that's the way his doctory brain works, he goes all medical on any problem he can get his hands on. Maybe that just ain't gonna work for you."

River continued staring at the table.

Kaylee pressed on, "Will you come out if I make Simon promise not to give you any medicine?"

River shrugged.

…..

Six hours later, Kaylee was trying to make good on her offer to River, unfortunately Simon was convinced his sister needed the antipsychotics and sedatives.

"Maybe if ya just tried talkin' with her about it, or about anything, instead a' chasing her around the place with yer syringes she'd feel better!"

Simon didn't even look up from the bowl of porridge he was eating for breakfast.

"Her condition is physical… You haven't seen the damage those _húndan_ inflicted on her brain. She needs proper medical attention and treatment, not psychobabble!"

Kaylee crossed her arms. "Well you ain't ever tried it! Soon as you smell a problem with her it's off to the infirmary, an' you know she's scared o' medical stuff, to stick 'er with needles. I'm her friend and I think…"

Simon cut across her, dropping his spoon and glaring across the table. "Which one of us is the one with the medical degree again? I can't believe I'm getting opinions on an advanced neurological condition from a frakking mechanic who doesn't know anything abou…"

The rest of his sentence was lost as Kaylee slapped him across the face.

Jayne snorted into his bowl. Everyone at the table knew he had just gone too far.

Kaylee didn't quite know what to do with herself after that, so she stormed out of the galley. As she was doing so, the captain stood up as well but instead of leaving, he strode behind Simon's seat and without breaking stride, hauled him from it by the back of his collar and dragged the still shell-shocked doc out the opposite door of the room.

Recovering the power of speech, Simon started to protest as Mal pushed him against the railings of the cargo bay gantry.

"What the hell are you…"

Mal put his arm against his medic's throat, lightly enough that he could still draw breath, but couldn't quite speak.

"No. Shut the fuck up and listen to me ya _Liou coe shway duh biao-tze huh hoe-tze duh ur-tze, _You do not speak to anyone on my boat like that less'n they deserve it, and that girl who puts up with you and your anally-retentive crap is not on the list of people who deserve it. _Dong ma?_

Simon made a noise that sounded like "gaaah"

"I'mma take that as a yes. Now, so far, all your medical shenanigans have done when applied to that sister a' yours is make her too whacked-out to function like a normal human bein'. You need to start accepting that maybe you can't fix her up the way you want, and maybe you should accept help when people who care about her and, for some strange reason, your pompous ass offer it to you.

"Gaaah."

"Shiny, here's what yer gonna do now; Yer gonna go find Kaylee and ask… nah, beg for her forgiveness, being on yer knees would probably be a good idea. Then, if you're still alive, yer gonna go sit outside your sister's door and let her know that ya ain't gonna stick her all over with needles."

He withdrew his arm from Simon's neck. "We on the same page here?"

Simon looked angry and embarrassed. "Yes captain… sorry."

The captain shook his head as he went back to his breakfast. "I ain't the one you need to apologise to…"

….

Despite the captain's instructions, Simon wasn't sure he could face Kaylee. So he trooped up to the habitation corridor, leaving his syringes and medicines in the infirmary along the way, and sat down outside River's door.

"Meimei? You in there?" He queried the steel door.

Silence.

"Great." Simon said inwardly. He tried to figure out how to put words to his thoughts.

He shuffled over so he was sitting with his head leaning on the door, looking up into the bridge and out through the window at the void outside.

"I uh, I'm sorry if I scared you before… with the medicine." He began. "I honestly thought it was the best way to help, to make you better."

"When I got you out of that place, I swore that I'd do whatever it took to bring back my little sister."

He stopped to think for a moment.

"The others reckon I might not be able to do that and um, it made me pretty mad. I said some stuff to Kaylee that I really didn't mean, so I'm gonna have to work out how to fix that now too… I just really wanted to help and maybe I knew they might be right so I got angry at them."

He shifted his shoulders against the metal and rolled his neck. As he did so there was a crunch and a grating noise from above him.

River stuck her head out of one of the ceiling panels and regarded her brother for a moment, her hair reaching nearly halfway to the floor in a weird curtain around her head.

There was a slight noise from down the corridor. River contorted her back in an almost impossible fashion and stared down at Kaylee's face peering around the corner at them.

River slid her arms out of her hiding place, lightly grabbing a pipe on the ceiling beside her as she slid the rest of her body out, her grip on the pipe flipping her the right way round as she let go and landed silently on the floor.

Kaylee walked slowly up the corridor to meet them, arms behind her back and an unreadable (to Simon) expression on her face.

River whipped her head around to look at Simon, who was still sitting on the floor; she examined him as though he was an interesting specimen that she hadn't encountered before. Then she broke into a huge grin.

"Si-mon's in trou-ble!" She sang before racing up the corridor, bypassing the steps up to the bridge and disappeared from view.

Simon jumped up to pursue her, but Kaylee grabbed onto his arm.

Wondering whether she was about to slap him again, Simon put his arm behind his head and looked at the floor.

"Emm, I'm sorry about earlier…"

He was cut off again, this time by a hug.

"I heard what ya told River. I reckon I'd be mad if I thought someone was sayin' I weren't good enough to fix up Serenity."

She drew back and gave him a stern look. "Don't think I ain't mad at you though…"

Simon grimaced. "Listen, I really am so sorry about what I said and I'll try and make it up to you however I can."

Kaylee beamed and hit the door release across the corridor. "I was hoping you'd say that! Back rub, come on!" She practically dragged him down the ladder.

…..

Zoe marched up the stairs onto the bridge and sat down in the co-pilot's seat. River was cross-legged in the pilot's chair, fiddling with a dial on the heading indicator.

Crossing her legs and checking on all the instruments, Zoe spun the chair to face River. " Decided to do your job today huh?"

River smiled, but didn't look up. "Needs someone who knows what they're doing."

Zoe chewed her lip and nodded slowly. "Well we're headed to Beylix, I think I can handle the situation here. Why don't ya go let the captain know you're back on duty?"

River spun her chair slowly, as she revolved to face Zoe she stuck out her tongue and puffed out her cheeks. When the chair completed its rotation to face the door she leapt out of it and danced down the stairs.

Zoe watched the space where she had been for a few seconds.

"Uh huh…"

…


End file.
